


Smile

by ritsuko



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Fitting In, M/M, Memory Loss, Mirrors, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 09:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3687879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ritsuko/pseuds/ritsuko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's only one thing keeping him from being a good Bucky Barnes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile

He breathes in, and out again.

He can do this, it's just another kind of mission.

Littered across the counter are magazines, static pictures of people smiling, laughing. Happy. He studies each and every one of them, before looking back up into the mirror.

His shaggy brown hair is back in a ponytail, he won't let anyone close enough to him to even consider having sharp objects near his head. The same goes for the growout on his face, the stubble getting darker every day. He knows that Steve will try to make some joke, tease him and tell him how he's beginning to look like a mountain man, but he doesn't want anyone to touch him. The last people to clean him were the techs, and they were never gentle.

Steve has only been gentle. There are moments when he wants to put his face in the handler's palm, and hope for praise-

_No._ He breathes in and out rapidly. _Steve is a friend. Not a handler._

Most days, he doesn't even know what that means. He knows that the blonde is important, that he's been the one for the change of the conditions of his handling. He's the one whose given him a warm soft bed, clean clothes, and actual food. He doesn't make him go into cryo, doesn't wipe him in the chair. Steve gives him books to read, and listens to music with him, they watch movies and work out. Steve insists he is his friend.

The asset never had friends, so he's not quite sure what is wanted of him some times. He's used to discipline and orders, pain and subservience. None of those things are implemented by the blonde, which makes being in his care even more confusing.

All he knows is Steve loves it when he pretends to be Bucky Barnes.

He feels a twinge at that; as if he's doing something wrong. But it's been nearly impossible to drag up what he once had been through the depths. The man who loved Steve Rogers. 

It's easier to pretend. When he does, the blonde smiles, perfect white teeth glinting, genuine and happy. 

Steve makes it look so easy.

He looks down at a brunette on the cover of a catalog. His mouth is open mid laugh, a pastel green polo shirt buttoned to the top primly. He tries to mimic the look in the mirror, but stops after only a moment; it looks too fierce. Like he's going to rip someone's throat out.

Whether he's done it or not is of no consequence; Steve just isn't going to want to see that. The blonde seems to shirk away from anything violent or gory, so that's not a good look.

He tries to mimic the blonde's soft and easy smile; but it comes out pinched in the mirror, like he's been forced to swallow glass. Except there's no blood this time. 

No, that smile is only good on Steve.

He flicks through another couple of pages of one of the magazines, brow furrowed. None of them are anything that he would consider less than fake. Plastic smiles over toothpaste and credit cards, alcohol and shoes. Luxuries he's never been afforded.

He thinks of anyone else to emulate.

Pierce's calm, neutral look, the one that spoke of diplomacy and secrets. 'The peacemaker'.

Just the thought of the older man's face turns his belly to ice, the amount of fear and deference once allotted to Pierce enough to make him wince. Definitely not the politician's look then, it was too cold and false to be anything akin to a real smile. Steve would see through it in an instant.

His metal fingers catch on a page, tearing slightly, the pressure off. His eyes light on a perfume ad with a sultry blonde with pouty lips smiling seductively at the camera.

He tries it in the mirror lips parted, eyes lidded. Just the feel of it on his face reminds him of times on his knees, naked, vulnerable, ready to service. It shouldn't make him feel as queasy as it does. That had been trained out of him long ago. But he grimaces in the mirror, the thought of sucking cock and moaning like a whore to stave off a beating less than optimal. While Steve seemed to care, none of his advances had been sexual.

His last handler had alternated between smiles, depending on the situation. When around the others, it was cold, full of malice, pleasure in the pain inflicted. But there were times, when no one was around, that the dark haired man had given him a smile so full of sadness, so mired in misery, that it was almost as if that face was emoting what he could not.

You never could escape HYDRA, not completely. As he tried on that sad smile in the mirror, muscle memory swam to the surface. The man handing him his weapons, touch lingering. Giving him a chocolate bar even though it was against regulation. The taste of his tongue on his. Sure, there were times the handler had to punish him, had to be cruel, but it never reached his eyes. 

Only the sadness did.

He'll probably never know what happened to Brock Rumlow, dead or missing like several hundred other agents. For some reason, the smile hurts too much, he can't take it for his own.

With a soft huff, his face goes back to neutral, blank and dead eyed. This is familiar. This is what he is.

But it's not what the handl-, Steve wants.

He pulls out his last resort.

The face has been staring at him for days, an old sepia toned photo on a bookshelf. The face could be his, if he could manage that smile.

It's so confident, full of light and laughter, cocky and sure, that it almost makes him flinch. He can't imagine his body ever exuding such emotion. he's never known himself as anything other than a weapon.

The blonde is in the photo with him, both of them smiling and happy. It makes something deep inside hurt, because not once since he has arrived has Steve ever worn a look like that on his face.

Which makes this mission so important.

He studies the picture, the curve of his jaw, the wrinkles around his eyes. It all seems so easy, but he can't make his face match the one in the picture. It's missing the light. His eyes are too dead.

The two men in the picture could be best friends, could be in love. Both are things he has never been allowed. It's hard to imagine this past life that is still so fresh in Steve's mind, that he remembers like yesterday.

The shirt in the picture looks comfy. _Scratchy, dirty as hell.._

Steve's arm is around him, protective and safe. _I got you, pal. I got you._

Bucky Barnes' eyes are full of an emotion that's hard to decipher, something that he's seen little of in HYDRA's care.

_I love you, punk._

He sucks in a breath, recognition coursing through his system like he's been struck by lightning.

Steve had saved him, from something. They'd marched for miles, so many men at their backs. _The fresh air was so, so good, filling his lungs with the scent of pine and freedom. . ._

But the soft smiles and reassuring shoulder bumps that Steve kept giving him were even better. His mouth had turned up, welling with pride, with joy, safe and happy. . .

The memory fades, pine scent of the forest replaced by the clean vanilla scent of hand soap. He sighs. There'd been more faces, more people, but they'd slipped away into his unconsciousness like smoke.   
_God, I need a cigarette. . ._ The thought comes, even though in all his years with HYDRA, he can only remember people smoking around him, never offering. A strange thing to crave.

He studies that picture, waiting for another glimmer of recognition. None come.

There's a soft knock on the bathroom door. "Bucky?"

He stiffens, glaring at the damning evidence of his current project across the counter. He never knows just what to say to Steve, but knows that another worried knock will come shortly. The blonde always worries, as if he's a small child that needs constant supervision. It's both irksome and endearing.

"One moment, please." The gravel of his voice states, low and imposing. But it works, Steve's footfalls pad down the hallway and he lets out the breath he'd been holding, then slowly, he pushes all the magazines into a neat little pile, the photograph tucked between a Men's Fitness and a People.

He hides them all underneath the sink, will put everything away later when Steve is asleep. He'll make everything seem normal.

He'll listen to more stories, glean more information. Perhaps he'll shave. Try to work up to a haircut.

Everything that Bucky Barnes was, he'll try to be.

But he knows that the smile is going to be a problem.

**Author's Note:**

> [TUMBLR!](http://ritsuko-chan.tumblr.com)


End file.
